Chapter II: Preface: By the Translator (2)

"Labeo is whipt, and laughs me in the face;
Why? for I smite, and hide the galled place.
Gird but the Cynic's helmet on his head,
Cares he for Talus, or his flayle of lead?"

PERSIUS, who borrowed so much of Horace's language, has little of his manner. The immediate object of his imitation seems to be Lucilius; and if he lashes vice with less severity than his great prototype, the cause must not be sought in any desire to spare what he so evidently condemned. But he was thrown "on evil times;" he was, besides, of a rank distinguished enough to make his freedom dangerous, and of an age when life had yet lost little of its novelty; to write, therefore, even as he has written, proves him to be a person of very singular courage and virtue.

In the interval between Horace and Persius, despotism had changed its nature: the chains which the policy of Augustus concealed in flowers, were now displayed in all their hideousness. The arts were neglected, literature of every kind discouraged or disgraced, and terror and suspicion substituted in the place of the former ease and security. Stoicism, which Cicero accuses of having infected poetry, even in his days, and of which the professors, as Quintilian observes, always disregarded the graces and elegancies of composition, spread with amazing rapidity.[22] In this school Persius was educated, under the care of one of its most learned and respectable masters.

Satire was not his first pursuit; indeed, he seems to have somewhat mistaken his talents when he applied to it. The true end of this species of writing, as Dusaulx justly says, is the improvement of society; but for this, much knowledge of mankind ("quicquid agunt homines") is previously necessary. Whoever is deficient in that, may be an excellent moral and philosophical poet; but can not, with propriety, lay claim to the honors of a satirist.

And Persius was moral and philosophical in a high degree: he was also a poet of no mean order. But while he grew pale over the page of Zeno, and Cleanthes, and Chrysippus; while he imbibed, with all the ardor of a youthful mind, the paradoxes of those great masters, together with their principles, the foundations of civil society were crumbling around him, and soliciting his attention in vain. To judge from what he has left us, it might almost be affirmed that he was a stranger in his own country. The degradation of Rome was now complete; yet he felt, at least he expresses, no indignation at the means by which it was effected: a sanguinary buffoon was lording it over the prostrate world; yet he continued to waste his most elaborate efforts on the miserable pretensions of pedants in prose and verse! If this savor of the impassibility of Stoicism, it is entitled to no great praise on the score of outraged humanity, which has stronger claims on a well-regulated mind, than criticism, or even philosophy.

Dryden gives that praise to the dogmas of Persius, which he denies to his poetry. "His verse," he says, "is scabrous and hobbling, and his measures beneath those of Horace." This is too severe; for Persius has many exquisite passages, which nothing in Horace will be found to equal or approach. The charge of obscurity has been urged against him with more justice; though this, perhaps, is not so great as it is usually represented. Casaubon could, without question, have defended him more successfully than he has done; but he was overawed by the brutal violence of the elder Scaliger; for I can scarcely persuade myself that he really believed this obscurity to be owing to "the fear of Nero, or the advice of Cornutus." The cause of it should be rather sought in his natural disposition, and in his habits of thinking. Generally speaking, however, it springs from a too frequent use of tropes, approaching in almost every instance to a catachresis, an anxiety of compression, and a quick and unexpected transition from one overstrained figure to another. After all, with the exception of the sixth Satire, which, from its abruptness, does not appear to have received the author's last touches, I do not think there is much to confound an attentive reader: some acquaintance, indeed, with the porch "braccatis illita Medis," is previously necessary. His life may be contemplated with unabated pleasure: the virtue he recommends, he practiced in the fullest extent; and at an age when few have acquired a determinate character, he left behind him an established reputation for genius, learning, and worth.

JUVENAL wrote at a period still more detestable than that of Persius. Domitian, who now governed the empire, seems to have inherited the bad qualities of all his predecessors. Tiberius was not more hypocritical, nor Caligula more bloody, nor Claudius more sottish, nor Nero more mischievous, than this ferocious despot; who, as Theodorus Gadareus indignantly declared of Tiberius, was truly πηλον αἱματι πεφυραμενον· a lump of clay kneaded up with blood!

Juvenal, like Persius, professes to follow Lucilius; but what was in one a simple attempt, is in the other a real imitation, of his manner.[23] Fluent and witty as Horace, grave and sublime as Persius; of a more decided character than the former, better acquainted with mankind than the latter; he did not confine himself to the mode of regulating an intercourse with the great, or to abstract disquisitions on the nature of scholastic liberty; but, disregarding the claims of a vain urbanity, and fixing all his soul on the eternal distinctions of moral good and evil, he labored, with a magnificence of language peculiar to himself, to set forth the loveliness of virtue, and the deformity and horror of vice, in full and perfect display.

Dusaulx, who is somewhat prejudiced against Horace, does ample justice to Juvenal. There is great force in what he says; and, as I do not know that it ever appeared in English, I shall take the liberty of laying a part of it before the reader, at the hazard of a few repetitions.

"The bloody revolution which smothered the last sighs of liberty,[24] had not yet found time to debase the minds of a people, among whom the traditionary remains of the old manners still subsisted. The cruel but politic Octavius scattered flowers over the paths he was secretly tracing toward despotism: the arts of Greece, transplanted to the Capitol, flourished beneath his auspices; and the remembrance of so many civil dissensions, succeeding each other with increasing rapidity, excited a degree of reverence for the author of this unprecedented tranquillity. The Romans felicitated themselves at not lying down, as before, with an apprehension of finding themselves included, when they awoke, in the list of proscription: and neglected, amid the amusements of the circus and the theatre, those civil rights of which their fathers had been so jealous.

"Profiting of these circumstances, Horace forgot that he had combated on the side of liberty. A better courtier than a soldier, he clearly saw how far the refinement, the graces, and the cultivated state of his genius (qualities not much considered or regarded till his time[25]), were capable of advancing him without any extraordinary effort.

"Indifferent to the future, and not daring to recall the past, he thought of nothing but securing himself from all that could sadden the mind, and disturb the system which he had skillfully arranged on the credit of those then in power. It is on this account, that, of all his contemporaries, he has celebrated none but the friends of his master, or, at least, those whom he could praise without fear of compromising his favor.

"In what I have said of Horace, my chief design has been to show that this Proteus, who counted among his friends and admirers even those whose conduct he censured, chose rather to capitulate than contend; that he attached no great importance to his own rules, and adhered to his principles no longer than they favored his views.

"JUVENAL began his satiric career where the other finished, that is to say, he did that for morals and liberty, which Horace had done for decorum and taste. Disdaining artifice of every kind, he boldly raised his voice against the usurpation of power; and incessantly recalled the memory of the glorious æra of independence to those degenerate Romans, who had substituted suicide in the place of their ancient courage; and from the days of Augustus to those of Domitian, only avenged their slavery by an epigram or a bonmot.

"The characteristics of Juvenal were energy, passion, and indignation: it is, nevertheless, easy to discover that he is sometimes more afflicted than exasperated. His great aim was to alarm the vicious, and, if possible, to exterminate vice, which had, as it were, acquired a legal establishment. A noble enterprise! but he wrote in a detestable age, when the laws of nature were publicly violated, and the love of their country so completely eradicated from the breasts of his fellow-citizens, that, brutified as they were by slavery and voluptuousness, by luxury and avarice, they merited rather the severity of the executioner than the censor.

"Meanwhile the empire, shaken to its foundations, was rapidly crumbling to dust. Despotism was consecrated by the senate; liberty, of which a few slaves were still sensible, was nothing but an unmeaning word for the rest, which, unmeaning as it was, they did not dare to pronounce in public. Men of rank were declared enemies to the state for having praised their equals; historians were condemned to the cross, philosophy was proscribed, and its professors banished. Individuals felt only for their own danger, which they too often averted by accusing others; and there were instances of children who denounced their own parents, and appeared as witnesses against them! It was not possible to weep for the proscribed, for tears themselves became the object of proscription; and when the tyrant of the day had condemned the accused to banishment or death, the senate decreed that he should be thanked for it, as for an act of singular favor.

"Juvenal, who looked upon the alliance of the agreeable with the odious as utterly incompatible, contemned the feeble weapon of ridicule, so familiar to his predecessor: he therefore seized the sword of Satire, or, to speak more properly, fabricated one for himself, and rushing from the palace to the tavern, and from the gates of Rome to the boundaries of the empire, struck, without distinction, whoever deviated from the course of nature, or from the paths of honor. It is no longer a poet like Horace, fickle, pliant, and fortified with that indifference so falsely called philosophical, who amused himself with bantering vice, or, at most, with upbraiding a few errors of little consequence, in a style, which, scarcely raised above the language of conversation, flowed as indolence and pleasure directed; but a stern and incorruptible censor, an inflamed and impetuous poet, who sometimes rises with his subject to the noblest heights of tragedy."

From this declamatory applause, which even La Harpe allows to be worthy of the translator of Juvenal, the most rigid censor of our author can not detract much; nor can much perhaps be added to it by his warmest admirer. I could, indeed, have wished that he had not exalted him at the expense of Horace; but something must be allowed for the partiality of long acquaintance; and Casaubon, when he preferred Persius, with whom he had taken great, and indeed successful pains, to Horace and Juvenal, sufficiently exposed, while he tacitly accounted for, the prejudices of commentators and translators. With respect to Horace, if he falls beneath Juvenal (and who does not?) in eloquence, in energy, and in a vivid and glowing imagination, he evidently surpasses him in taste and critical judgment. I could pursue the parallel through a thousand ramifications, but the reader who does me the honor to peruse the following sheets, will see that I have incidentally touched upon some of them in the notes: and, indeed, I preferred scattering my observations through the work, as they arose from the subject, to bringing them together in this place; where they must evidently have lost something of their pertinency, without much certainty of gaining in their effect.

Juvenal is accused of being too sparing of praise. But are his critics well assured that praise from Juvenal could be accepted with safety? I do not know that a private station was "the post of honor" in those days; it was, however, that of security. Martial, Statius, V. Flaccus, and other parasites of Domitian, might indeed venture to celebrate their friends, who were also those of the emperor. Juvenal's, it is probable, were of another kind; and he might have been influenced no less by humanity than prudence, in the sacred silence which he has observed respecting them. Let it not be forgotten, however, that this intrepid champion of virtue, who, under the twelfth despot, persisted, as Dusaulx observes, in recognizing no sovereign but the senate, while he passes by those whose safety his applause might endanger, has generously celebrated the ancient assertors of liberty, in strains that Tyrtæus might have wished his own.

He is also charged with being too rhetorical in his language. The critics have discovered that he practiced at the bar, and they will therefore have it that his Satires smack of his profession, "redolent declamatorem."[26] That he is luxuriant, or, if it must be so, redundant, may be safely granted; but I doubt whether the passages which are cited for proofs of this fault, were not reckoned among his beauties by his contemporaries. The enumeration of deities in the thirteenth Satire is well defended by Rigaltius, who admits, at the same time, that if the author had inserted it any where but in a Satire, he should have accounted him a babbler; "faterer Juv. hic περιλαλον fuisse et verborum prodigum." He appears to me equally successful, in justifying the list of oaths in the same Satire, which Creech, it appears, had not the courage to translate.

The other passages adduced in support of this charge, are either metaphorical exaggerations, or long traits of indirect Satire, of which Juvenal was as great a master as Horace. I do not say that these are interesting to us; but they were eminently so to those for whom they were written; and by their pertinency at the time, should they, by every rule of fair criticism, be estimated. The version of such passages is one of the miseries of translation.

I have also heard it objected to Juvenal, that there is in many of his Satires a want of arrangement; this is particularly observed of the sixth and tenth. I scarcely know what to reply to this. Those who are inclined to object, would not be better satisfied, perhaps, if the form of both were changed; for I suspect that there is no natural gradation in the innumerable passions which agitate the human breast. Some must precede, and others follow; but the order of march is not, nor ever was, invariable. While I acquit him of this, however, I readily acknowledge a want of care in many places, unless it be rather attributable to a want of taste. On some occasions, too, when he changed or enlarged his first sketch, he forgot to strike out the unnecessary verses: to this are owing the repetitions to be found in his longer works, as well as the transpositions, which have so often perplexed the critics and translators.

Now I am upon this subject, I must not pass over a slovenliness in some of his lines, for which he has been justly reproached by Jortin and others, as it would have cost him no great pains to improve them. Why he should voluntarily debase his poetry, it is difficult to say: if he thought that he was imitating Horace in his laxity, his judgment must suffer considerably. The verses of Horace are indeed akin to prose; but as he seldom rises, he has the art of making his low flights, in which all his motions are easy and graceful, appear the effect of choice. Juvenal was qualified to "sit where he dared not soar." His element was that of the eagle, "descent and fall to him were adverse," and, indeed, he never appears more awkward than when he flutters, or rather waddles, along the ground.

I have observed in the course of the translation, that he embraced no sect with warmth. In a man of such lively passions, the retention with which he speaks of them all, is to be admired. From his attachment to the writings of Seneca, I should incline to think that he leaned toward Stoicism; his predilection for the school, however, was not very strong: perhaps it is to be wished that he had entered a little more deeply into it, as he seems not to have those distinct ideas of the nature of virtue and vice, which were entertained by many of the ancient philosophers, and indeed, by his immediate predecessor, Persius. As a general champion for virtue, he is commonly successful, but he sometimes misses his aim; and, in more than one instance, confounds the nature of the several vices in his mode of attacking them: he confounds too the very essence of virtue, which, in his hands, has often "no local habitation and name," but varies with the ever-varying passions and caprices of mankind. I know not whether it be worth while to add, that he is accused of holding a different language at different times respecting the gods, since in this he differs little from the Greek and Roman poets in general; who, as often as they introduce their divinities, state, as Juvenal does, the mythological circumstances coupled with their names, without regard to the existing system of physic or morals. When they speak from themselves, indeed, they give us exalted sentiments of virtue and sound philosophy; when they indulge in poetic recollections, they present us with the fables of antiquity. Hence the gods are alternately, and as the subject requires, venerable or contemptible; and this could not but happen through the want of some acknowledged religious standard, to which all might with confidence refer.

I come now to a more serious charge against Juvenal, that of indecency. To hear the clamor raised against him, it might be supposed, by one unacquainted with the times, that he was the only indelicate writer of his age and country. Yet Horace and Persius wrote with equal grossness: yet the rigid Stoicism of Seneca did not deter him from the use of expressions, which Juvenal perhaps would have rejected: yet the courtly Pliny poured out gratuitous indecencies in his frigid hendecasyllables, which he attempts to justify by the example of a writer to whose freedom the licentiousness of Juvenal is purity! It seems as if there was something of pique in the singular severity with which he is censured. His pure and sublime morality operates as a tacit reproach on the generality of mankind, who seek to indemnify themselves by questioning the sanctity which they can not but respect; and find a secret pleasure in persuading one another that "this dreaded satirist" was at heart no inveterate enemy to the licentiousness which he so vehemently reprehends.

When we consider the unnatural vices at which Juvenal directs his indignation, and reflect, at the same time, on the peculiar qualities of his mind, we shall not find much cause, perhaps, for wonder at the strength of his expressions. I should resign him in silence to the hatred of mankind, if his aim, like that of too many others, whose works are read with delight, had been to render vice amiable, to fling his seducing colors over impurity, and inflame the passions by meretricious hints at what is only innoxious when exposed in native deformity: but when I find that his views are to render depravity loathsome; that every thing which can alarm and disgust is directed at her in his terrible page, I forget the grossness of the execution in the excellence of the design; and pay my involuntary homage to that integrity, which fearlessly calling in strong description to the aid of virtue, attempts to purify the passions, at the hazard of wounding delicacy and offending taste. This is due to Juvenal: in justice to myself, let me add, that I could have been better pleased to have had no occasion to speak at all on the subject.

Whether any considerations of this or a similar nature deterred our literati from turning these Satires into English, I can not say; but, though partial versions might be made, it was not until the beginning of the seventeenth century that a complete translation was thought of; when two men, of celebrity in their days, undertook it about the same time; these were Barten Holyday and Sir Robert Stapylton. Who entered first upon the task, can not well be told. There appears somewhat of a querulousness on both sides; a jealousy that their versions had been communicated in manuscript to each other: Stapylton's, however, was first published, though that of Holyday seems to have been first finished.

Of this ingenious man it is not easy to speak with too much respect. His learning, industry, judgment, and taste are every where conspicuous: nor is he without a very considerable portion of shrewdness to season his observations. His poetry indeed, or rather his ill-measured prose, is intolerable; no human patience can toil through a single page of it;[27] but his notes will always be consulted with pleasure. His work has been of considerable use to the subsequent editors of Juvenal, both at home and abroad; and indeed, such is its general accuracy, that little excuse remains for any notorious deviation from the sense of the original.

Stapylton had equal industry, and more poetry; but he wanted his learning, judgment, and ingenuity. His notes, though numerous, are trite, and scarcely beyond the reach of a schoolboy. He is besides scandalously indecent on many occasions, where his excellent rival was innocently unfaithful, or silent.

With these translations, such as they were, the public was satisfied until the end of the seventeenth century, when the necessity of something more poetical becoming apparent, the booksellers, as Johnson says, "proposed a new version to the poets of that time, which was undertaken by Dryden, whose reputation was such, that no man was unwilling to serve the Muses under him."

Dryden's account of this translation is given with such candor, in the exquisite dedication which precedes it, that I shall lay it before the reader in his own words.

"The common way which we have taken, is not a literal translation, but a kind of paraphrase, or somewhat which is yet more loose, betwixt a paraphrase and a translation. Thus much may be said for us, that if we give not the whole sense of Juvenal, yet we give the most considerable part of it: we give it, in general, so clearly, that few notes are sufficient to make us intelligible: we make our author at least appear in a poetic dress. We have actually made him more sounding, and more elegant, than he was before in English: and have endeavored to make him speak that kind of English, which he would have spoken had he lived in England, and had written to this age. If sometimes any of us (and it is but seldom) make him express the customs and manners of his native country rather than of Rome, it is, either when there was some kind of analogy betwixt their customs and ours, or when, to make him more easy to vulgar understandings, we gave him those manners which are familiar to us. But I defend not this innovation, it is enough if I can excuse it. For to speak sincerely, the manners of nations and ages are not to be confounded."[28]

This is, surely, sufficiently modest. Johnson's description of it is somewhat more favorable: "The general character of this translation will be given, when it is said to preserve the wit, but to want the dignity, of the original." Is this correct? Dryden frequently degrades the author into a jester; but Juvenal has few moments of levity. Wit, indeed, he possesses in an eminent degree, but it is tinctured with his peculiarities; "rarò jocos," as Lipsius well observes, "sæpius acerbos sales miscet." Dignity is the predominant quality of his mind: he can, and does, relax with grace, but he never forgets himself; he smiles, indeed; but his smile is more terrible than his frown, for it is never excited but when his indignation is mingled with contempt; "ridet et odit!" Where his dignity, therefore, is wanting, his wit will be imperfectly preserved.[29]

On the whole, there is nothing in this quotation to deter succeeding writers from attempting, at least, to supply the deficiencies of Dryden and his fellow-laborers; and, perhaps, I could point out several circumstances which might make it laudable, if not necessary: but this would be to trifle with the reader, who is already apprised that, as far as relates to myself, no motives but those of obedience determined me to the task for which I now solicit the indulgence of the public.

When I took up this author, I knew not of any other translator; nor was it until the scheme of publishing him was started, that I began to reflect seriously on the nature of what I had undertaken, to consider by what exertions I could render that useful which was originally meant to amuse, and justify, in some measure, the partiality of my benefactors.

My first object was to become as familiar as possible with my author, of whom I collected every edition that my own interest, or that of my friends, could procure; together with such translations as I could discover either here or abroad; from a careful examination of all these, I formed the plan, to which, while I adapted my former labors, I anxiously strove to accommodate my succeeding ones.

Dryden has said, "if we give not the whole, yet we give the most considerable part of it." My determination was to give the whole, and really make the work what it professed to be, a translation of Juvenal. I had seen enough of castrated editions, to observe that little was gained by them on the score of propriety; since, when the author was reduced to half his bulk, at the expense of his spirit and design, sufficient remained to alarm the delicacy for which the sacrifice had been made. Chaucer observes with great naiveté,

"Whoso shall tell a tale after a man,
He moste reherse as neighe as ever he can
Everich word, if it be in his charge,
All speke he never so rudely and so large."

And indeed the age of Chaucer, like that of Juvenal, allowed of such liberties. Other times, other manners. Many words were in common use with our ancestors, which raised no improper ideas, though they would not, and indeed could not, at this time be tolerated. With the Greeks and Romans it was still worse: their dress, which left many parts of the body exposed, gave a boldness to their language, which was not perhaps lessened by the infrequency of women at those social conversations, of which they now constitute the refinement and the delight. Add to this that their mythology, and sacred rites, which took their rise in very remote periods, abounded in the undisguised phrases of a rude and simple age, and being religiously handed down from generation to generation, gave a currency to many terms, which offered no violence to modesty, though abstractedly considered by people of a different language and manners, they appear pregnant with turpitude and guilt.

When we observe this licentiousness (for I should wrong many of the ancient writers to call it libertinism) in the pages of their historians and philosophers, we may be pretty confident that it raised no blush on the cheek of their readers. It was the language of the times--"hæc illis natura est omnibus una:" and if it be considered as venial in those, surely a little farther indulgence will not be misapplied to the satirist, whose object is the exposure of what the former have only to notice.

Thus much may suffice for Juvenal: but shame and sorrow on the head of him who presumes to transfer his grossness into the vernacular tongues! "Legimus aliqua ne legantur," was said of old, by one of a pure and zealous mind. Without pretending to his high motives, I have felt the influence of his example, and in his apology must therefore hope to find my own. Though the poet be given entire, I have endeavored to make him speak as he would probably have spoken if he had lived among us; when, refined with the age, he would have fulminated against impurity in terms, to which, though delicacy might disavow them, manly decency might listen without offense.

I have said above, that "the whole of Juvenal" is here given; this, however, must be understood with a few restrictions. Where vice, of whatever nature, formed the immediate object of reprobation, it has not been spared in the translation; but I have sometimes taken the liberty of omitting an exceptionable line, when it had no apparent connection with the subject of the Satire. Some acquaintance with the original will be necessary to discover these lacunæ, which do not, in all, amount to half a page: for the rest, I have no apologies to make. Here are no allusions, covert or open, to the follies and vices of modern times; nor has the dignity of the original been prostituted, in a single instance, to the gratification of private spleen.

I have attempted to follow, as far as I judged it feasible, the style of my author, which is more various than is usually supposed. It is not necessary to descend to particulars; but my meaning will be understood by those who carefully compare the original of the thirteenth and fourteenth Satires with the translation. In the twelfth, and in that alone, I have perhaps raised it a little; but it really appears so contemptible a performance in the doggerel of Dryden's coadjutor, that I thought somewhat more attention than ordinary was in justice due to it. It is not a chef-d'œuvre by any means; but it is a pretty and a pleasing little poem, deserving more notice than it has usually received.

I could have been sagacious and obscure on many occasions, with very little difficulty; but I strenuously combated every inclination to find out more than my author meant. The general character of this translation, if I do not deceive myself, will be found to be plainness; and, indeed, the highest praise to which I aspire, is that of having left the original more intelligible to the English reader than I found it.

On numbering the lines, I find that my translation contains a few less than Dryden's. Had it been otherwise, I should not have thought an apology necessary, nor would it perhaps appear extraordinary, when it is considered that I have introduced an infinite number of circumstances from the text, which he thought himself justified in omitting; and that, with the trifling exceptions already mentioned, nothing has been passed; whereas he and his assistants overlooked whole sections, and sometimes very considerable ones.[30] Every where, too, I have endeavored to render the transitions less abrupt, and to obviate or disguise the difficulties which a difference of manners, habits, etc., necessarily creates: all this calls for an additional number of lines; which the English reader, at least, will seldom have occasion to regret.

Of the "borrowed learning of notes," which Dryden says he avoided as much as possible, I have amply availed myself. During the long period in which my thoughts were fixed on Juvenal, it was usual with me, whenever I found a passage that related to him, to impress it on my memory, or to note it down. These, on the revision of the work for publication, were added to such reflections as arose in my own mind, and arranged in the manner in which they now appear. I confess that this was not an unpleasant task to me, and I will venture to hope, that if my own suggestions fail to please, yet the frequent recurrence of some of the most striking and beautiful passages of ancient and modern poetry, history, etc., will render it neither unamusing nor uninstructive to the general reader. The information insinuated into the mind by miscellaneous collections of this nature, is much greater than is usually imagined; and I have been frequently encouraged to proceed by recollecting the benefits which I formerly derived from casual notices scattered over the margin, or dropped at the bottom of a page.

In this compilation, I proceeded on no regular plan, farther than considering what, if I had been a mere English reader, I should wish to have had explained: it is therefore extremely probable, as every rule of this nature must be imperfect, that I have frequently erred; have spoken where I should be silent and been prolix where I should be brief: on the whole, however, I chose to offend on the safer side; and to leave nothing unsaid, at the hazard of sometimes saying too much. Tedious, perhaps, I may be; but, I trust, not dull; and with this negative commendation I must be satisfied. The passages produced are not always translated; but the English reader needs not for that be discouraged in proceeding, as he will frequently find sufficient in the context to give him a general idea of the meaning. In many places I have copied the words, together with the sentiments of the writer; for this, if it call for an apology, I shall take that of Macrobius, who had somewhat more occasion for it than I shall be found to have: "Nec mihi vitio vertas, si res quas ex lectione varia mutuabor, ipsis sæpè verbis quibus ab ipsis auctoribus enarratæ sunt explicabo, quia præsens opus non eloquentiæ ostentationem, sed noscendorum congeriem pollicetur," etc. Saturn., lib. i., c. 1.

* * * * *

I have now said all that occurs to me on this subject: a more pleasing one remains. I can not, indeed, like Dryden, boast of my poetical coadjutors. No Congreves and Creeches have abridged, while they adorned, my labors; yet have I not been without assistance, and of the most valuable kind.

Whoever is acquainted with the habits of intimacy in which I have lived from early youth with the Rev. Dr. Ireland,[31] will not want to be informed of his share in the following pages. To those who are not, it is proper to say, that besides the passages in which he is introduced by name, every other part of the work has been submitted to his inspection. Nor would his affectionate anxiety for the reputation of his friend suffer any part of the translation to appear, without undergoing the strictest revision. His uncommon accuracy, judgment, and learning have been uniformly exerted on it, not less, I am confident, to the advantage of the reader, than to my own satisfaction. It will be seen that we sometimes differ in opinion; but as I usually distrust my own judgment in those cases, the decision is submitted to the reader.

I have also to express my obligations to Abraham Moore, Esq., barrister at law, a gentleman whose taste and learning are well known to be only surpassed by his readiness to oblige: of which I have the most convincing proofs; since the hours dedicated to the following sheets (which I lament that he only saw in their progress through the press) were snatched from avocations as urgent as they were important.

Nor must I overlook the friendly assistance of William Porden, Esq.,[32] which, like that of the former gentleman, was given to me, amid the distraction of more immediate concerns, with a readiness that enhanced the worth of what was, in itself, highly valuable.

A paper was put into my hand by Mr. George Nicol, the promoter of every literary work, from R. P. Knight, Esq., containing subjects for engravings illustrative of Juvenal, and, with singular generosity, offering me the use of his marbles, gems, etc. As these did not fall within my plan, I can only here return him my thanks for a kindness as extraordinary as it was unexpected. But I have other and greater obligations to Mr. Nicol. In conjunction with his son, Mr. William Nicol, he has watched the progress of this work through the press with unwearied solicitude. During my occasional absences from town, the correction of it (for which, indeed, the state of my eyes renders me at all times rather unfit) rested almost solely on him; and it is but justice to add, that his habitual accuracy in this ungrateful employ is not the only quality to which I am bound to confess my obligations.

FOOTNOTES:

[16] The origin of this word is now acknowledged to be Roman. Scaliger derived it from σατυρος (_satyrus_), but Casaubon, Dacier, and others, more reasonably, from _satura_ (fem. of _satur_), rich, abounding, full of variety. In this sense it was applied to the lanx or charger, in which the various productions of the soil were offered up to the gods; and thus came to be used for any miscellaneous collection in general. _Satura olla_, a hotch-potch; _saturæ leges_, laws comprehending a multitude of regulations, etc. This deduction of the name may serve to explain, in some measure, the nature of the first Satires, which treated of various subjects, and were full of various matters: but enough on this trite topic.

[17] It should be observed, however, that the idea was obvious, and the work itself highly necessary. The old Satire, amid much coarse ribaldry, frequently attacked the follies and vices of the day. This could not be done by the comedy which superseded it, and which, by a strange perversity of taste, was never rendered national. Its customs, manners, nay, its very plots, were Grecian; and scarcely more applicable to the Romans than to us.

[18] To extend this to Lucilius, as is sometimes done, is absurd, since he evidently had in view the old comedy of the Greeks, of which his Satires, according to Horace, were rigid imitations:

"Eupolis atque Cratinus, Aristophanesque poëtæ
Atque alii, quorum comœdia prisca virorum est;
Si quia erat dignus describi, quod malus, aut fur,
Quod mœchus foret, aut sicarius, aut alioqui
Famosus, multa cum libertate notabant.
HINC omnis pendet Lucilius, hosce secutus,
Mutatis tantum pedibus, numerisque."

Here the matter would seem to be at once determined by a very competent judge. Strip the old Greek comedy of its action, and change the metre from Iambic to Heroic, and you have the Roman Satire! It is evident from this, that, unless two things be granted, first, that the actors in those ancient Satires were ignorant of the existence of the Greek comedy; and, secondly, that Ennius, who knew it well, passed it by for a ruder model; the Romans can have no pretensions to the honor they claim.

And even if this be granted, the honor appears to be scarcely worth the claiming; for the Greeks had not only Dramatic, but Lyric and Heroic Satire. To pass by the Margites, what were the Iambics of Archilochus, and the Scazons of Hipponax, but Satires? nay, what were the Silli? Casaubon derives them απο του σιλλαινειν, to scoff, to treat petulantly; and there is no doubt of the justness of his derivation. These little pieces were made up of passages from various poems, which by slight alterations were humorously or satirically applied at will. The Satires of Ennius were probably little more; indeed, we have the express authority of Diomedes the grammarian for it. After speaking of Lucilius, whose writings he derives, with Horace, from the old comedy, he adds, "et olim carmen, quod ex variis poematibus constabat, satira vocabatur; quale scripserunt Pacuvius et Ennius." Modern critics agree in understanding "ex variis poematibus," of various kinds of metre; but I do not see why it may not mean, as I have rendered it, "of various poems;" unless we choose to compliment the Romans, by supposing that what was in the Greeks a mere cento, was in them an original composition.

It would scarcely be doing justice, however, to Ennius, to suppose that he did not surpass his models, for, to say the truth, the Greek Silli appear to have been no very extraordinary performances. A few short specimens of them may be seen in Diogenes Laertius, and a longer one, which has escaped the writers on this subject, in Dio Chrysostom. As this is, perhaps, the only Greek Satire extant, it may be regarded as a curiosity; and as such, for as a literary effort it is worth nothing, a short extract from it may not be uninteresting. Sneering at the people of Alexandria, for their mad attachment to chariot-races, etc., he says, this folly of theirs is not ill exposed by one of those scurrilous writers of (Silli, or) parodies: ου κακως τις παρεποιησε των σαπρων τουτων ποιητων·

Ἁρματα δ' αλλοτε μεν χθονι πιλνατο πουλυβοτειρῃ,
Αλλοτε δ' αεξασκε μετηορα· τοι δε θεαται
Θωκοις εν σφετεροις, ουθ' ἑστασαν, ουδ' εκαθηντο,
Χλωροι ὑπαι δειους πεφοβημενοι, ουδ' ὑπο νικες
Αλληλοισι τε κεκλομενοι, και πασι θεοισι
Χειρας ανισχοντες, μεγαλ' ευχετοωντο ἑκαστοι.
Ἡυτε περ κλαγγη γερανων πελει, ηε κολοιων,
Ἁι τ' επει ουν ζυθον τ' επιον, και αθεσπατον οινον,
Κλαγγῃ ται γε πετονται απο σταδιοιο κελευθου. κ. τ. λ.

_Ad Alexand. Orat._ xxxii.

[19] I doubt whether he was ever a good royalist at heart; he frequently, perhaps unconsciously, betrays a lurking dissatisfaction; but having, as Johnson says of a much greater man, "tasted the honey of favor," he did not choose to return to hunger and philosophy. Indeed, he was not happy; in the country he sighs for the town, in town for the country; and he is always restless, and straining after something which he never obtains. To float, like Aristippus, with the stream, is a bad recipe for felicity; there must be some fixed principle, by which the passions and desires may be regulated.

[20] He is careful to disclaim all participation in public affairs. He accompanies Mæcenas in his carriage; but their chat, he wishes it to be believed, is on the common topics of the day, the weather, amusements, etc. Though this may not be strictly true, it is yet probable that politics furnished but a small part of their conversation. That both Augustus and his minister were warmly attached to him, can not be denied; but then it was as to a plaything. In a word, Horace seems to have been the "enfant gaté," of the palace, and was viewed, I believe, with more tenderness than respect.

[21] Mr. Drummond has given this passage with equal elegance and truth:

"With greater art sly Horace gain'd his end,
But spared no failing of his smiling friend;
Sportive and pleasant round the heart he play'd,
And wrapt in jests the censure he convey'd;
With such address his willing victims seized,
That tickled fools were rallied, and were pleased."

[22] Dusaulx accounts for this by the general consternation. Most of those, he says, distinguished for talents or rank, took refuge in the school of Zeno; not so much to learn in it how to live, as how to die. I think, on the contrary, that this would rather have driven them into the arms of Epicurus. "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die," will generally be found, I believe, to be the maxim of dangerous times. It would not be difficult to show, if this were the place for it, that the prevalency of Stoicism was due to the increase of profligacy, for which it furnished a convenient cloak. This, however, does not apply to Persius.

[23] I believe that Juvenal meant to describe himself in the following spirited picture of Lucilius:

"Ense velut stricto quoties Lucilius ardens
Infremuit, rubet auditor, cui frigida mens est
Criminibus, tacita sudant præcordia culpa."

[24] This is an error which has been so often repeated, that it is believed. What liberty was destroyed by the usurpation of Augustus? For more than half a century, Rome had been a prey to ambitious chiefs, while five or six civil wars, each more bloody than the other, had successively delivered up the franchises of the empire to the conqueror of the day. The Gracchi first opened the career to ambition, and wanted nothing but the means of corruption, which the East afterward supplied, to effect what Marius, Sylla, and the two triumvirates brought about with sufficient ease.

[25] This is a very strange observation. It looks as if Dusaulx had leaped from the times of old Metellus to those of Augustus, without casting a glance at the interval. The chef d'œuvres of Roman literature were in every hand, when he supposed them to be neglected: and, indeed, if Horace had left us nothing, the qualities of which Dusaulx speaks might still be found in many works produced before he was known.

[26] I have often wished that we had some of the pleadings of Juvenal. It can not be affirmed, I think, that there is any natural connection between prose and verse in the same mind, though it may be observed, that most of our celebrated poets have written admirably "solutâ oratione:" yet if Juvenal's oratory bore any resemblance to his poetry, he yielded to few of the best ornaments of the bar. The "torrens dicendi copia" was his, in an eminent degree; nay, so full, so rich, so strong, and so magnificent is his eloquence, that I have heard one well qualified to judge, frequently declare that Cicero himself, in his estimation, could hardly be said to surpass him.

[27] With all my respect for the learning of the good old man, it is impossible, now and then, to suppress a smile at his simplicity. In apologizing for his translation, he says: "As for publishing poetry, it needs no defense; there being, if my Lord of Verulam's judgment shall be admitted, 'a _divine rapture_ in it!'"

[28] He evidently alludes to the versions of the second and eighth Satires by Tate and Stepney, but principally to the latter, in which Juvenal illustrates his argument by the practice of Smithfield and Newmarket! Indeed, Dryden himself, though confessedly aware of its impropriety, is not altogether free from "innovation;" he talks of the Park, and the Mall, and the Opera, and of many other objects, familiar to the translator, but which the original writer could only know by the spirit of prophecy.

I am sensible how difficult it is to keep the manners of different ages perfectly distinct in a work like this: I have never knowingly confounded them, and, I trust, not often inadvertently; yet more occasions perhaps of exercising the reader's candor will appear, after all, than are desirable.

[29] Yet Johnson knew him well. The peculiarity of Juvenal, he says (vol. ix., p. 424), "is a mixture of gayety and stateliness, of pointed sentences, and declamatory grandeur." A good idea of it may be formed from his own beautiful imitation of the third Satire. His imitation of the tenth (still more beautiful as a poem) has scarcely a trait of the author's manner--that is to say, of that "mixture of gayety and stateliness," which, according to his own definition, constitutes the "peculiarity of Juvenal." "The Vanity of Human Wishes" is uniformly stately and severe, and without those light and popular strokes of sarcasm which abound so much in his "London."

[30] In the fourteenth Satire, for example, there is an omission of fifteen lines, and this, too, in a passage of singular importance.

[31] Sub-Dean and Prebendary of Westminster, and Vicar of Croydon, in Surrey.

[32] The architect of Eton Hall, Cheshire, a structure which even now stands pre-eminent among the works which embellish the nation, and which future times will contemplate with equal wonder and delight.

CHRONOLOGY OF JUVENAL, PERSIUS, AND SULPICIA.

A.D. 14-138.